FILM NEWS: Are You Ready For Sabrina The Teenage Superhero?

In a cinematic landscape awash with warring Snow Whites, extraterrestrial turtles and hyper-sexualised children’s toys, you might have thought it impossible to still be surprised when Hollywood chose to violate your childhood.

Not so, it seems, as Sony Pictures seeks to update Nickelodeon-mainstay Sabrina the Teenage Witch for the big screen, if by update you mean beat out of shape and present in near-unrecognisable form. Say hello (or no thank you) to Sabrina the Teenage Superhero. Providing she’s still called Sabrina, obviously. And that she’s still a she.

The character first appeared in Archie Comics in the 1960s, before making the transition to small screens (and weekend marathons) everywhere as a live action sit-com starring Melissa Joan Hart. A regular girl until she inherited the powers passed down from her two aunts, Sabrina Spellman used her magic to help her friends, turn her enemies into goats and woo love interest Harvey, all under the sardonic eye of the family pet: talking cat Salem.

An origin story, the future film will focus on the acquisition of Sabrina’s powers (whatever they may be) and show how she comes to terms with such new abilities. But by changing something so integral to the character, Sony have immediately ostracised her from George Gladir and artist Dan DeCarlo’s world. Aside from innocent tinkering (a new pair of shoes here, a giant flan there), Sabrina wasn’t exactly one for super-heroic feats, nor was she plagued by a pantheon of larger-than-life nemesis’ like Spider-man or Batman. Until now, presumably, as she has to appeal to an audience weaned on pixels and parallax.